


At the end of the earth, after the moment gradually passes

by Risabet



Category: ONEWE (Band)
Genre: M/M, there is no death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-07
Updated: 2020-10-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:21:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26882833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Risabet/pseuds/Risabet
Summary: Unlike other people, Hyungu knows that instead of passing peacefully by, the asteroid is going to hit. Where, when, that much he doesn't know. What he does know, however, is that at least two people will suffer the consequences. His life, as he has come to know it, will come to an end with the impact, and someone will be there to witness it.
Relationships: Jin Yonghoon/Kang Hyungu | Kanghyun
Comments: 2
Kudos: 35





	At the end of the earth, after the moment gradually passes

Hyungu knows that an asteroid is coming. He believes everybody knows it, although it is never spoken of. He has always assumed that it is such common knowledge that it would be silly to mention it, such as air being essential to life. But unlike other people, Hyungu knows that instead of passing peacefully by, the asteroid is going to hit. Where, when, that much he doesn't know. What he does know, however, is that at least two people will suffer the consequences. His life, as he has come to know it, will come to an end with the impact, and someone will be there to witness it. Someone he has known this entire time without knowing them at all. Come what may, at least he will finally be able to see their face for the first time.

He has seen it all happen countless times. The exploding hot fire, blinding sparkles raining down, dark eyes overflowing with tears, soft lips parting to scream silently, a graceful shape turning towards him in slow motion with one hand extended, the entire world like a scene from a play caught in a crossfire of stage lights, pitch-black shadows across a feverish white glow. The image fills his every sense so completely that he doesn't even wonder about the lack of sound. There simply is no room left for it.

This is his earliest memory, perhaps his very first dream, possibly dating from before he was even born. The dream keeps repeating itself, first a few times a year, seldom enough for him to almost forgot it between each time. Then it starts to come back almost every month, then more or less every week, until one day he is fully awake, and the school yard suddenly turns into the black and white ocean of his dreams. He is eight years old, recess ends in ten minutes, and he can see his classmates running around him just as clearly as he did a second before, as the waves tug at his legs angrily, almost toppling him over.

Hyungu isn't scared one bit. He watches calmly with serious eyes as the silhoutte turns to face him, simultaneously familiar and unclear in its lack of detail. From somewhere in the background he hears the other children calling for him, vaguely replies, "In a minute!", and it's like a spell has been broken, the dream vanishing just as suddenly as it had appeared.

  
  


Asteroid or no asteroid, Hyungu is more or less a regular kid growing up, busy studying and monkeying around with his friends, tearing his pant legs and scraping his knees in over-enthusiastic after school football games which first get replaced by kendo and ultimately by endless hours of guitar practice, the instrument his first true love. After initially worrying about the effect this newly found enthusiasm will have on Hyungu's grades, his parents eventually recognize his passion and take it seriously. They pay for his lessons and after he has shown that he is ready to commit to them, they encourage him to take an entrance exam to get to a proper music academy.

When he gets accepted, the three of them celebrate by having dinner at their favourite restaurant, the one where his grandfather would on special occasions take Hyungu's dad decades ago. This detail of family history makes Hyungu think of their family as parts of something bigger, small but important links in a long chain of people just like them. This never fails to comfort him, to make him feel less exposed and alone in the world, the long-surviving hole-in-the-wall restaurant their family port in the midst of unexplored waters.

They sit around the table, grilling meat and laughing together, his parents beaming with pride, and Hyungu thinks this must be the happiest moment of his entire life, and suddenly the stars explode before his eyes for the first time in what must be years. The shock is so huge that for a while he forgets to breathe and then chokes on air as he tries to refill his lungs. He doesn't remember the last time this has happened, and much more importantly he doesn't remember having forgotten about it for all this time. He manages to brush off his parents' exclamations of worry and concern with a watery, wheezing laugh, claiming he must have gotten too excited about the dinner cooking in front of them. For the rest of the evening he sees a double vision of dreams and present, both equally lucid and real to him.

After this his dream never fully goes away again, but neither does it appear at random like before. Instead Hyungu catches glimpses of it almost every time he picks up his guitar, his music becoming inseparable from what Hyungu now knows for certain will be his future. If there ever was any doubt of this, there certainly isn't anymore. It is difficult for him to put to words, why exactly, but he knows it has everything to do with music being the first language he truly feels fluent in, the only language in which he knows how to really express himself.

  
  


It is hardly surprising that he ends up in a band; it's not like rock guitarists are in high demand as solo acts. There must be thirteen bands to the dozen in the academy, all equally determined to make it big one way or another, practicing to the point their fingers almost bleed. Harin and Giwook aren't exactly the kind of people Hyungu would have thought he would end up in a band with, the former older, lanky and goofy, the latter always reminding Hyungu of a small, determinate and colorful hawk. Neither can he claim to have envisioned a band member like Dongmyeong, who is bright and almost vibrates with enthusiasm at any given moment. And yet Hyungu wouldn't trade them for the world, and he knows that the three make him not only a better musician but also a better person.

For some reason it doesn't occur to Hyungu to wonder who the person in his dream is until he is sixteen. Even then it is an oddly dispassionate thought, and he vaguely realizes that deep inside he has always known that this is something he doesn't need to worry about. That they should find each other when the time comes is just as unavoidable as the impact itself, a comet and an exoplanet in the gentle yet unpenetrable darkness formed by other people surrounding them.

As good as it is with just the four of them, they all agree that adding Yonghoon to the group is what finally solidifies their resolve to succeed not as individuals but together, a whole bigger than the sum of its parts. Hyungu is as much in favor of Yonghoon joining the band as the rest of them, but to his surprise it takes Hyungu a a considerable amount of time to start feeling comfortable around the older boy. When he ends up voicing his concerns to Harin, the older boy explains that this is because Hyungu is a cat and Yonghoon is a dog. At Hyungu's astonished look, he elaborates that a dog wag its tail to show happiness; a cat does the same to express irritation and rattles out a list of other similar examples for good measure, but which all boil down to that sometimes people use different means to reach same ends.

It shouldn't make sense, but somehow it does. Hyungu starts making a bigger effort to try and see things from Yonghoon's perspective, and Yonghoon seems to pick up on this, making an effort of his own. At first it is a tentative game of give and take, but in due time Hyungu starts to feel that he has learned yet another foreign language, just like he did when he first picked up a guitar.

He doesn't fully realize how close the two of them have become until their group finally gets signed with an actual company, which then right away announces that they are not only changing the band's name, but also making Yonghoon the leader instead of Hyungu. He is amazed to find that he fully means it when he tells a worried and tearful Yonghoon that he agrees with the decision, that Yonghoon will be a better leader than Hyungu ever was. Then again, why wouldn't he mean it? Yonghoon is, after all, the best friend he has ever had.

  
  


By the time he is twenty the formerly detached wondering has blossomed into a longing that makes Hyungu's bones ache. He finds himself in the swell of waves more and more often in the middle of the day and feels a growing need to run, to reach out, to at least shout out something,  _anything_ for them to look out, to escape while there is still time, to at least tell him their name. But his dream has yet to happen, and there is nothing else for him to do than to pray for the first headlines to appear and announce that his wait is over at long last.

The headlines never come. Instead the five of them work harder than ever, through more hardships they could have imagined, until they finally,  _finally_ debut, a dream of such magnitude actualized that they are almost afraid to believe it, like a bunch of kids telling each other  _don jinx it_ even though there no longer is any need for that. Sure, it's not only fun and games, and it absolutely does not reduce the amount of work they do, but it is worth it, Hyungu tells himself, worth all the trouble and pain, worth every cliché under the sun. It is worth it when his friends envelope him in a hug that is tangle of tears and limbs, when they climb onto a stage and announce their new name for the first time, when he strums out the first chord and thinks this must be the happiest moment of his entire life, and the world explodes into a familiar shower of stars. He nearly laughs out loud with joy; it's almost like he is sharing the moment with the person he constantly longs for. He allows himself to believe it won't be long now.

  
  


As much as they love what they are doing, it is still hard work that takes its toll on all of them. One after another they grow snappy and irritated with lack of sleep and the continuous strain of being simultaneously too much and not enough in the public eye. The frustration manifests as bickering and petty fights, and culminates on a particularly bad day which begins with Giwook and Dongmyeong having a shouting match, and ends with Hyungu and Yonghoon getting into a fight at dinner time, a stupid, ridiculous fight over nothing that nevertheless escalates and escalates, until Yonghoon says Hyungu  _doesn't care about other people's feelings and never has_ and Hyungu retorts that he  _cares alright but there is a limit to how much of glass bones and paper skin a grown man should have_ , and Yonghoon abruptly leaves the room in tears, leaving behind a hot, ringing silence and a sense of guilt that threatens to crush Hyungu. Even Harin is too fed up to try and resolve the mess, and they all end up going to bed that night feeling empty and hollow and more lonely than they ever thought possible.

  
  


It takes a full twenty four hours for their manager to get everybody on speaking terms with one another again, and even the athmosphere is lukewarm at best. Finally, as a desperate measure, the manager tells them to take a few days off, to go on a trip together, to get away from it all for a while. At first no one is in the mood for it, but then Dongmyeong timidly tells them that it is shooting star season, but he hasn't seen any in the past few years because city lights tend to block them out. Maybe they could get out of Seoul and sleep outside for a night? No one says it out loud, but they all know that Dongmyeong absolutely  _hates_ camping, but both Harin and Yonghoon are weirdly into outdoorsy activities. Giwook - young, idealistic and, above all, a romantic - has on the other hand always wanted to sleep under the stars, but has never had the opportunity. 

And Hyungu? His feelings toward the great outdoors are neither here or there, but he wouldn't be surprised if Dongmyeong hadn't noticed his habit of staring at the night sky for as long as he can at every given opportunity, as if though searching for something.

They all understand how thoughtful the suggestion is, and it doesn't take long for them to get packed up into a car and head to a location Harin claims to know and has apparently been to before with his friends from high school.

By the time they get outside the city Giwook and Dongmyeong have forgotten about their earlier disagreement, and keep chattering and laughing almost non-stop for the duration of the journey. Harin chimes in every now and then, the good mood clearly catching, but Yonghoon and Hyungu are remain quiet, neither one of them quite prepared to be the one to apologize first. However, about halfway through the ride Yonghoon rests his head on Hyungu's shoulder, and Hyungu presses his cheek against the Yonghoon's hair. It doesn't make things okay, doesn't undo weeks and weeks worth of frustration that they have been taking out on each other, but it is something.

  
  


The sun has begun to set when they finally turn to a narrow, bumpy dirt road which end up opening to a clearing right next to what seems to be miles and miles of shoreline, too rough and untouched to be called a beach except for a small patch near a copse of small trees. It is here that Harin parks the car, and for a moment Hyungu's world goes silent and the black and white image aligns perfectly with what is in front of him. He now knows that he has seen his dream for the last time, and only reality remains. For the first time ever he feels the first tendrils of fear creeping into his lungs along with the cooling night air.

They camp out on the beach by the trees, and although the kids swear they will stay up the entire night they all end up falling asleep soon, exhausted by not only the long drive, but the long year behind them.

  
  


When Hyungu wakes up the first thing he sees is the Milky Way right above him. For a while he marvels at it, but then he remembers and gets up, ignoring the chill that has set around them. At first he hesitates, but settles then on a direction and starts to walk along the waterline, following a set of footsteps he cannot see in the dark.

  
  


He stops only a fraction of a second before the first explosion that fills the world with that silent brightness that Hyungu thinks he must have born out of, and illuminates the figure standing in the water up to their knees, angry waves threathening to throw them off of their feet, the person so near they might as well be on the opposite side of the galaxy.

Ignoring the stars that keep raining into the water all around them Hyungu finally breaks into a run, for this is the only opportunity he will ever get to do so. Despite the unbroken silence the figure lowers their gaze from the sky and turns toward Hyungu just like he knew they would, and at last Hyungu looks straight into those eyes, sees them in perfect detail, truly sees for the first time the man whom he has known for years, possibly for all eternity, the man who rested his head against Hyungu's shoulder only a few hours earlier.

Hyungu sees the first tears that fall down Yonghoon's cheeks, sees how they hit the water that has turned into silver and gold, sees Yonghoon's lips forming words and then, finally, Hyungu hears for the first time the voice he has been waiting for in silence for over two decades.

Hyungu just has time to pull Yonghoon into a tight embrace before the shock wave hits and throws them into the air like a pair of birds desperate to escape before first snowfall, and then pushes them underwater.

The last thing Hyungu remembers is Yonghoon's words ringing clearly in his ears.

  
  


When Hyungu wakes up, the sun is just about to rise over the horizon. A small flock of seagulls cry out in the distance, just far enough to be out of sight. He glances at Dongmyeong, Giwook and Harin, making sure they are all still asleep. Then he turns around toward the warmth right next to him, and meets Yonghoon's smiling eyes. Hyungu takes a deep breath, unsure of his voice yet, and prepares to say the first words he has ever said, to tell Yonghoon the most important thing in the world.

**Author's Note:**

> This work of fiction was heavily inspired by ONEWE's song Parting, which was written by Kanghyun (Hyungu). The title has also been borrowed from the lyrics. Before 'Parting' I had never even heard of ONEWE, but this stunningly beautiful song moved me deeply, and I'm grateful it exists.
> 
> This fic references a lot of real life events re; ONEWE's history, but is by no means fully accurate even on those. And of course, the story itself is completely made up.
> 
> Please support ONEWE and listen to Parting as well as their other amazing songs!


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